Hotel Cavalier – a poem

Here is the Hotel Cavalier,
its orange neon sign
sending Morse code
to the malnourished—
those hungering
for even the imitation
of love.

Here is the Hotel Cavalier,
its gray rooms, and
Soviet light schemes,
hiding spies,
lovers,
and whores
equally.

Here is my room:
orange,
then gray,
throbbing and contracting
like a heart
turned to stomach.

I sit on the toilet,
counting the blue and white tiles
at the base of the sink.

She walks past me—
a glimpse of hip,
flesh,
leg.

Next door,
two people are desperately fucking.
The banging against the wall
reminds me of a coffin
just before
it’s put in the ground.

She’s in the kitchenette,
pouring boxed wine
into a glass.

She walks past again,
caresses my cheek
with a prosthetic hook.

Love is
more or less
abstract.

I’m at the window now,
counting the rungs
on the fire escape.

I look back.
The drag of her cigarette
makes her face glow
monstrously.

I find myself
tethered
to the orange and gray
of her exhale.

We lie together
in each other’s arms,
so still,
troubled
by the far-off sound
of the abattoir

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© 2025 Chris Leibow — Salt Lake City artist and poet.
poetry, collage art, mixed media,
Explore more art at leibow.art.

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POSTSCRIPT

The real Hotel Cavalier on East 34th Street began as an inexpensive hotel in the 1930s. a 1939 photo shows a sign advertising “34th Street Hotel Rooms $1.00 Up.” From the 1960s through the 1990s it shifted into a low-cost, short-residency hotel and eventually became a place known for crime and other troubles. Reporters described it as the kind of building where bad things often happened in the halls.

I’ve always been fascinated by places like this, buildings with reputations as the last stop before oblivion, like the old St. Francis Hotel in Portland. But even in places that are worn down, overlooked, or avoided, people still reach for each other. Small moments of softness, connection, and care still break through.

The poem lives inside that truth: tenderness can happen anywhere, even in the darkest rooms.